Muslim Ethics
The early Muslim philosophers who formulated the foundations of Muslim ethical thinking were infl uenced by the early Greek philosophers, such as Aristotle, whose works had been translated into Arabic and were available throughout what is now known as the Middle East. So Muslim ethics can be considered a cousin to many Western ethical traditions.
Broadly speaking, Muslim ethics have much in common with what Western phi- losophers refer to as virtue ethics. For Muslim philosophers, ethics is derived from principles set forth in the Qur’an. Specifi c virtues mentioned in the Qur’an are humility, honesty, giving to the poor, kindness, and trustworthiness. Very clearly honesty and trustworthiness are important virtues for those practicing a profession such as engineering, and indeed are articulated in the codes of ethics of the engi- neering societies in the United States. It’s also not much of a stretch to see how humility and kindness can be applied to professional practice. The Qur’an also mentions vices such as boasting, blasphemy, and slander [ Donaldson, 1963 ]. While blasphemy is only applicable in a religious context, the other two vices do speak to engineering professional practice. For example, the engineering codes of ethics discuss making accurate and realistic claims based on available data and prohibit engineers from making false claims about other engineers.
Thus, it seems that although some of the roots of ethical thinking common in the Islamic world are different from those in the Western world, the way Islamic eth- ics impacts engineering professional practice is the same as that of Western ethics. Indeed, the codes of ethics of professional engineering societies in the Middle East are similar and frequently overlap those from the United States, as can be seen in Appendix A.